A Rajasthani artist shows off his long moustache to foreign tourists at Lalgarh Junction in Bikaner on Wednesday.
Raj Kumar Thapa, additional district development commissioner, Rajouri, and his two staff members were seriously injured when an artillery shell hit his official residence in Rajouri town, the officials said.
Meanwhile, a precautionary blackout has been enforfced in the multiple areas amid the esclating tensions between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan military spokesperson Lieutenant General Ahmad Sharif Chaudhry told a hurriedly called press conference in Islamabad at around 4 am that th Pakistan air force's Nur Khan (Chaklala, Rawalpindi), Murid (Chakwal) and Rafiqui (Shorkot in Jhang district) airbases were targeted.
Security forces entered Lalgarh on Saturday to reclaim it from Maoist-backed tribals and were closing in on the police station there. The personnel of paramilitary forces and the state police were just two km away from the Lalgarh police station, which is under Maoist control.
With tribal agitators on warpath, a company of Central force arrived in restive Lalgarh in West Midnapore district on Tuesday as the West Bengal government sought more companies to assist the police.
After reclaiming control of key Lalgarh police station area, security forces on Sunday pushed deeper to break the Maoist siege of 17 villages considered strongholds of the ultras and tribals backed by them.
Elusive tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato, spearheading an agitation since November last year against alleged police atrocities at Lalgarh in West Midnapore district, was arrested on Saturday.
The battle to recapture Lalgarh from Maoists began in right earnest on Thursday as the police and central forces today stormed the area smashing a human shield of tribal agitators with a barrage of teargas shells and lathi-charges. A 600-strong mob of tribals armed with lathis, axes, spears, bows and arrows blocked the road when the security forces arrived and shouted at the police asking them to apologise for alleged atrocities, a PTI correspondent on the spot saw.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday demanded immediate withdrawal of joint security forces from trouble-hit Lalgarh, alleging that the CPI-M had used the security operation to unleash terror in a bid to regain control of the area. "We demand that the Centre take steps to ensure withdrawal of the joint forces at Lalgarh where the CPI-M is capturing village after village with the help of joint forces," she said.
"The police not only arrested us, but also beat up some of our members mercilessly. We have not come here to break the law. Why is the police stopping us from moving freely in an independent democratic country," Patkar sought to know.
Business establishments, shops, small factories, transport services and even central government programmes like National Rural Employment Guarantee Act are not functioning due to the strife between the Maoists and security forces. Tribals are unable to enter forests to collect kendu leaves which they sell for a living for fear of being rounded up by security forces.
Lalgarh, once a nerve centre of Naxal insurgency in West Bengal, now represents a different place.
Four jawans have been killed after Naxals blew up a vehicle carrying Central Reserve Police Force troopers in West Midnapore, West Bengal, on Wednesday.
Security forces conducting the operation to liberate Lalgarh have cleared 22 of 42 villages in the area of Maoist-backed tribal agitators and were further consolidating their positions, officials said on Monday.
The Union Home Ministry has already sent a total of 16 companies (1,600 personnel), including an all-women company, to the state to tackle the Lalgarh situation.
Two more Communist Party of India-Marxist cadres were found dead as pro-Naxal tribals, agitating against alleged police atrocities, on Monday torched three police camps and demolished house of a Marxist leader, virtually taking control of Lalgarh in West Midnapur district after forcing security forces to leave the area.
Defending the Centre's decision to deploy paramilitary forces in Lalgarh, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday said the Centre could not sit idle when lives of people were in danger and the state government failed to reopen Lalgarh police station.
Five persons, including a woman, were killed and over 20 injured when villagers suspecting a house was being used by armed Communist Party of India-Marxist cadre gheraoed it and were fired upon from inside in Lalgarh area of West Midnapore district on Friday.
Trouble continues in Lalgarh in West Bengal state as Tribals and members of the People's Committee against Police Atrocities continue their violent protests.
Art of Living founder Sri Ravi Shankar on Friday had a talk with Maoist leader, Chakradhar Mahato, and persuaded the group to lay down their arms.
The anti-Maoist joint operations by Central forces and police at restive Lalgarh in West Midnapore district were not a total success as no major arrest could be made or killings stopped, the West Bengal Government said on Thursday.
The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday demanded the immediate withdrawal of central forces from Lalgarh in West Midnapore district and asked the Centre to take up development programmes there."We demand immediate withdrawal of the joint security forces, who are committing atrocities on innocent villagers in the name of nabbing Maoists, and urge the Centre to take up development programmes at Lalgarh as early as possible," said a senior Trinamool Congress leader.
Left Front chairman Biman Bose held both Maoists and Trinamool Congress responsible for the firing incident at Lalgarh which has claimed six lives.
'The people at Lalgarh die of starvation regularly, there is no health infrastructure, our children don't get proper education, the tribal languages are neglected and no steps are taken for the welfare of the Jangalmahal residents. If the PCAPA is given power, it can really do wonders,' says PCAPA convenor Chhatradhar Mahato.
The Trinamool Congress' rally in Maoist-affected Lalgarh had its echo in Parliament on Monday with members of the Left seeking to know the Centre's stand on the alleged hobnobbing of the United Progressive Alliance ally with the extremists, dubbing the meeting as an "anti-national activity".
"Two security men -- Alok Mondal and Srimanta Banerjee -- of the Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) were fatally injured in the landmine explosion. The duo was rushed to Midnapore Medical College and Hospital where they were declared brought dead," West Midnapore SP Manoj Kumar Verma told PTI over phone.
On his first visit to the heart of Naxal territory in West Bengal, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram ruled out the involvement of the military in anti-Maoist operations and made a fresh offer of dialogue with the left-wing extremists.
The Trinamool Congress will launch a Nandigram type of movement with its rally at Lalgarh on Monday in 'Jungle Mahal' prior to the assembly elections in West Bengal next year.
Noting that Maoists still have "pockets of influence" in Lalgarh, the government on Saturday said the situation in the strife-torn area in West Bengal was not stable but maintained that paramilitary forces cannot be deployed there indefinitely.
Maoists have started losing their sway over the people of Lalgarh and its surrounding areas in the wake of a sustained operation by the joint forces and the arrest of tribal leaders Chhatradhar Mahato and Sukhshanti Baske.
The Centre should call off the operations in West Midnapore district and instead engage the Central forces in unearthing illegal arms allegedly stockpiled by the Communist Party of India-Marxist in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said on Monday.
The first group of securitymen arrived at Lalgarh police station, which had been cut off by the tribals since November last year, with the police saying that it was a 'partial victory'.
Three Central Reserve Police Force personnel were on Tuesday killed by their colleague in the Silapara camp of the para-military force in Lalgarh in Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal, police said.
Former West Bengal chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray wrote to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram recently suggesting the central government involve social bodies for the welfare of the Lalgarh people reeling under acute poverty and underdevelopment.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Monday claimed the bullets used by suspected Communist Party of India-Marxist cadre in the January 7 Lalgarh firing incident, which left seven villagers dead, were same as those used by police.
"We are concerned. It (killings) should stop. After all who are being killed are average political workers," Home Minister P Chidambaram told media persons in New Delhi.
Charging two central ministers belonging to Trinamool Congress with "inciting violence" in Lalgarh, the Communist Party of India-Marxist asked the Centre to explain why they were allowed to visit the place in West Bengal violating Home Ministry directives against such trips.
The lines between reality, facts and opinions are blurred in Lalgarh, which remains trapped in a vicious circle of oppression and retribution, finds Sanchari Bhattacharya
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